An Ode of Time and Fate
by Aventi
Summary: The Three-Eyed Crow asked him whether he would like to have his legs back. Bran had dreaded this moment, knowing full well his resolve would falter. "What if you could see your loved ones again?" His words were tempting. How to refuse him? "What if you could save their lives, and the realm from the long night?" Yes, but how? "By knowing everything before anything happens."
1. Tyrion

_It should go without saying, you should have read the books and/or watched the show at least up until the end of season four. I don't necessarily stick to one version, as I glean small details from each of the two as I go. I'd say this is more heavily leaning towards the show, but not completely._

 _This idea has been bouncing around in my head lately, so I decided to give it a go, flesh it out, and see how it evolves. Let's get on with it._

* * *

 **An Ode of Time and Fate**

 **Tyrion**

Without preamble, Tyrion had lost all taste for a whore's company, from one moment to the next. Sweet carnal release one second, then bitter like the bile crawling up his throat.

The nauseating waves that assailed his gullet also came out of nowhere, as did the unbidden flashes of images in the back of his mind. The rank stench of blood mixing with his lord father's waste in the privy lingered in his nose, long after he had gone and dropped the unwound crossbow. Another image played before his eyes, as crisp as though he had just experienced it hours ago. A naked woman he did not know sprawled behind the velvet drapes of a bed befit of a king, her lifeless doe eyes staring out to nothing. Her dark hair curled to one side in a tangled mess after some struggle. A chain linked by golden hands that could only belong to the Hand of the King cut into her throat like hempen rope from the gallows.

Oddly enough, he realized that he _did_ know her after all. Her name was Shae, and she had betrayed him in favor of his sweet sister and his lord father, even though he had never had the misfortune of meeting one such called Shae.

 _Why am I seeing all of this?_ He dared hope for a split second that these pestering thoughts would go away on their own if he ignored them, these dark fantasies of the innermost recedes of his psyche. Yet… _These are not fantasies, but memories…_

Tyrion shifted uncomfortably on the saddle. The long day's ride had his thighs sore and yearning for rest. He looked over ahead toward the front of the column to find King Jof… no, Prince Joffrey Baratheon, flanked by a pair of knights in the snow-white cloaks of the Kingsguard, and his sworn shield, Sandor Clegane, following in the rear like his hound. For a moment he found himself in a peculiar mix of relief and disappointment to find his nephew alive and scornful as ever. It was only for half a heartbeat that he glimpsed the Prince… no, the King, then, clawing desperately at his neck, his face blackening, streaks of veins popping up on his flesh as he wheezed his last breaths.

His fingers went up to the scab that was left of his nose, only to find it whole and unscathed. He fiddled with it as he reflected, barely aware of the tree sentinels and soldier pines ever standing watch along the Kingsroad. _Is it a nightmare I just woke up from?_ Clear images of the battle of the Blackwater against Stannis Baratheon flashed in the back of his eyes, as the green inferno caused by the wildfire swirled upon the river and consumed man and ship alike in its wake. _Stannis came to wrestle the Iron Throne from Joffrey._ Yet it was Robert Baratheon who ruled the Seven Kingdoms, and presently led the royal procession at the head of the column.

Tyrion wasn't prone to sleeping on the saddle, much less when he had the prospect of doing it in the brothel at Winter Town, with a comely whore to warm his bed and a flagon of wine to coax him to sleep. _I've been awake all this time._ Yet he could see his own lord father slumped in agony on the privy seat, a quarrel's fletching sprouting from his navel. He remembered the Mountain that Rides smashing the Red Viper's face in and the collective gasp that it drew from the crowd, save for Ellaria Sand whose screams were the last thing Tyrion heard before being dragged off; the days he spent captive in the dank tower cell, and his conveniently rigged trial to favor Queen Cersei's case against him. His marriage to Sansa Stark, a girl whom he was just about to meet for the first time, replayed crisp as day before his eyes, as well as the moment he threatened to have Joffrey gelded. He could still feel the tension that had filled the hall, like a wire about to snap. Then there was Ser Mandon Moore, blade gleaming green with wildfire as it sliced his nose clean. Then the point of a spear sprouting through his ruin of a face, a knight of the Kingsguard struck down by tongue-tied Podrick Payne, Tyrion's yet-to-meet squire on the eve of the Battle of the Green Fork long before the former event took place. That and much more.

After being flooded with all these troubling memories and advantageous knowledge, Winter Town's brothel suddenly did not seem so appealing. _Knowledge is power._

 _All of this has yet to happen, and somehow…_

He looked around at his companions. Lords bannermen, knights in polished steel, sworn swords, freeriders and others who had attached themselves to the procession along the way, crowded his surroundings. Their banners and pennons, emblazoned with the crowned stag of Baratheon, fluttered from the top of their lances, streaming in the chilly wind. Somewhere along the middle of the column was the Queen's wheelhouse, a massive double-decked carriage of lacquered oak and golden metal pulled by forty heavy draft horses. His noble brother, Ser Jaime Lannister, rode close behind him, beside the Queen's wheelhouse, his snow-white cloak billowing in the soft, chilly wind.

Somehow he was not surprised to find his brother frowning under the white helmet in puzzlement as he had found himself doing so just moments ago. Tyrion reined in just enough to level with Jaime. The white knight had taken a particularly conspicuous interest in his right hand as his tall destrier trotted along the royal litter.

"Curious, you look as though you've lost that before and found it," Tyrion said.

Jaime opened his mouth to reply, paused, and said. "That's… actually what I was thinking." He flexed his fingers, admiring each movement as though he'd never see them move again. Jaime reached down for his scabbard, and drew out his longsword, slicing the air with deft movements, before twirling the blade about his wrist to a halt. "How I missed that feeling." He was grinning.

"Right, I just remembered you had lost your sword hand," Tyrion mentioned almost casually.

"You remember, too?" Jaime said, eyes wide open with astonishment. From the way he looked around, Tyrion assumed the notion troubled his fearless brother deeply. "What in Seven Hells is happening? Not that I begrudge getting my sword hand back."

"Gods be damned if I know."

Jaime glanced at him with an accusing sort of look. "Weren't you sentenced to die for… you know…?"

"For kingslaying, you mean?" Tyrion wasn't afraid to say it out loud. No one could possibly know what they were talking about, or care, for that matter. _Unless they remember_. "Yes, apparently I was, until my knight in white answered my calls for succor."

"How discrete of you, sweet brother," Jaime said, paying most of his attention to his sword hand.

"So we both have recollections of events not yet passed," Tyrion mused. "If so, we can't be the only ones who remember. Makes me wonder, how would our sweet sister react to such awful memories."

"No need to worry about Cersei," Jaime replied carelessly. "She'll try to shut them out, pretend they never happened, or rather, will never happen, most like."

Tyrion could not be so sure about that. Eerily enough, Cersei chanced to pull back the corner of the curtain just enough to get a peek of her two brothers. The Queen gave Tyrion a venomous look before shutting the drapes, and leaning out from the other side of the wheelhouse and ordering Ser Mandon Moore to send for Prince Joffrey.

 _Or she could order him to kill me,_ Tyrion thought wryly.

The boy prince showed no hints of disconcert such as Tyrion and Jaime did as he rode beside the white knight, annoyance deeply set in his creased brow and pouted mouth. Despite that, even the white knights of the Kingsguard paled in splendor when standing next to the prince. Joffrey rode a tall and elegant jet-black courser. He wore a black and gold doublet embroidered with goldwork, the prancing stag of Baratheon emblazoned on his chest.

His sweet sister made a fuss of stopping the litter, and the rest of the mile-long procession along with it. The Queen hurried to step out. The moment she laid eyes upon her firstborn son, tears threatened to spill, before she blinked them back.

"O, gods be good, you're alive and well," Cersei said in a soft voice, embracing Joffrey. "And more beautiful than ever, my sweet boy."

"Yes, I'm glad of that, too," the boy replied. He couldn't have looked more distant toward his mother than at that moment.

"I swear I won't let any harm come to you. I will always be ready to protect you," she said, kissing his cheek.

"But you're a woman. I have my own sworn shield and the Kingsguard for that," Joffrey replied, breaking apart.

Cersei smiled. "Of course, my child. I only believe a mother should never outlive her offspring."

"Don't worry. I plan on outliving most people," the prince said. His mouth curled in contempt. "What's the matter, anyhow? You're embarrassing me in front of the whole realm, Mother,"

Cersei dabbed a tear from her cheek with the sleeve of her gown. "It's nothing, I was just missing you."

"Well, just don't make a habit of it," Joffrey said, mounting his courser and riding off ahead.

Cersei cast a murderous glance in Tyrion's way. "Let's not keep the king waiting," she said to Mandon Moore, and climbed back in sullen silence into the wheelhouse with Prince Tommen and Princess Myrcella.

 _Oh, she remembers, all right,_ thought Tyrion. _Though Joffrey and Ser Mandon Moore showed no signs of it whatsoever._

"The Prince is up and about. I guess you're redeemed now," Jaime said with sly amusement as they resumed their journey. He mumbled. "Still a little shit as ever."

"I've told you, I didn't do it," Tyrion said wearily.

"Oh, I don't doubt that. Let's try your bride, Sansa Stark, once we get to Winterfell, see if she remembers, too."

"Jaime, my sweet brother, for the sake of all the realm, let's just hope Lord and Lady Stark _do not_ remember, or it may bleed sooner rather than later."

 _Indeed, knowledge is power,_ he thought.


	2. Arya

**Arya**

That morning had been a rough awakening from a nightmare, a long, terrible nightmare. Arya drew up the drapes of her bed, and sat up on the edge. The beeswax candle on her bedside table had been consumed halfway. Only cinders remained at the hearth, its edges blackened with soot. It took her several minutes to truly recognize her bedchamber at Winterfell. Dawn was just breaking and sunlight slanted across the room in bright shafts that fell across the velvet carpet. She could not remember how long she had been away from her true home.

What she _could_ remember, though, was the breezy, briny air tousling up her short, brown hair, the blue-green expanse of salt water rippling in endless waves as far as the eye could see, the unfurled sails catching the gusting wind, the creaking deck of the _Titan's Daughter_ under her feet, as it prepared to set sail for Braavos, just minutes ago. And before that, crystal clear she recalled the terrible fight between Brienne and the Hound, and how she had finally crossed his name from her list of people to kill.

Her entire journey from King's Landing, to Harrenhal, crossing the riverlands, making for Riverrun, watching Lord Beric Dondarrion being brought back to life, getting snatched by Sandor Clegane and then taken to the Twins, and then the Eyrie, it all replayed in the back of her mind in reverse, from last to first. And then she stood at the feet of Baelor the Blessed, before the Great Sept in King's Landing, a place she knew she had never been to in her life, and yet...

Her father's greatsword, Ice, gleamed briefly in the sunlight before slicing down in a deadly arc. Yoren cut her off from the grisly view and proceeded to smuggle her out of the city, effectively saving her life.

Arya rose and padded to the window to stare out to Winterfell's yards and keeps. _Ser Gregor, Dunsen, Raff the Sweetling, Ser Ilyn, Ser Meryn , Queen Cersei,_ she recited, watching the people she thought dead go about their usual business in the bailey below and up on the battlements. "Valar morghulis," she whispered. And then she answered herself. "Valar dohaeris."

She felt strange, different, _smaller_. She could barely reach over the windowsill to peer outside. And then she realized with a start how small she was. She had grown taller, and somewhat stouter along her journey, from her periodic odd jobs scrubbing castle steps, or performing as a cupbearer, and from having to survive in the wild for days straight. But now she could feel it in this body, how weak she really was, and she hated it.

She also remembered this exact day, when she was still a happy and innocent child that loved teasing her siblings, that hated having to act a proper lady, that envied Sansa for being perfect at everything, that she could wish to see her lord father and lady mother, and they would always be there for her. _Today's the day King Robert feasts in our halls._ When everything went down the drain. If only that could be changed…

Arya could not say how she had recalled that. Old memories mingled with the future ones to create one chaotic mess in her mind. The tiny squeak that came afterward only served as reinforcement that she had truly come back and wasn't dreaming up some wistful reverie. Her direwolf pup crawled from the foot of her bed and bounded toward her to meet her legs beside the window.

"Nymeria!" she exclaimed, dropping to her knees to stroke the puppy behind its pointy ears. The direwolf stood on its hind legs and licked at her face. "I promise I won't chase you away this time."

 _If she's here then that means…_ She had to see her other loved ones for herself.

Arya bolted out of her room, the direwolf close at her heels as she raced down the turnpike stair and pushed out through the iron-studded door of the Great Keep into the courtyard. Breathless, she stood undecided as to where to go. _Father, Mother, Jon, Robb, Bran, Rickon, Sansa._

Down in the smithy she saw Mikken working the bellows at the forge. Hullen, the master-of-horse, and a couple of stableboys were watering and saddling up horses, and oddly enough, she couldn't see Hodor working among them. Septon Chayle hobbled up the twisting stairs in the Library Tower. Over at the Maester's Turret, Arya spotted Maester Luwin peering out the window. In the middle of the courtyard, men-at-arms hammered at each other with blunt tourney swords in a dissonant dance of clacking and clattering noise.

Across the yard Arya spied her half-brother, Jon Snow, striding firmly toward Jory Cassel under the armory's roof, his white direwolf, Ghost, following close behind. His eyes seemed hard, and his jaw tight. Arya raced toward them and stopped to listen just a few yards away from them. Nymeria sat on her haunches, waiting. Jon did not seem to notice them. His voice was anything unlike him, ripe with a heavy commanding tone.

"Jory, where's Greyjoy?" he demanded.

The Captain of the Household Guard seemed taken aback. "I haven't seen him today." He shrugged. "What's the matter, anyhow?"

"I know it's not my place to order anyone around, but I'm asking you as a friend. Keep an eye out for Theon. He cannot be trusted."

"A friend, eh?" Jory chuckled. He resumed strapping his gauntlets to his wrists. "All right, Jon. If you don't mind my saying, though, Theon's been like a sibling to all of you. Lord Stark has raised him as though he were his own. What brings you to mistrust him like this?"

"A suspicion," Jon said. "A hunch, if you will. Let's keep this between us for now. I don't want to start a scandal for naught. I'm just being cautious, for my brothers' sake."

"Very well, you have my word," Jory said, attaching his sword belt to his waist. "I'll have Desmond watch him over for the time being." He hooked his thumbs under the belt. "Be sure to look your best, Snow. The royal procession is nigh upon us."

Jon gave him a half smile. "I will." He turned to Arya waiting outside the armory, and their eyes met for the first time in years, it would seem. He carried a slender oilcloth bundle in one arm. He grinned. "I was just going to go look for you, little sister."

Ghost, already a tad bigger than the rest of the litter, moved to smell Nymeria. Arya gave the white direwolf a soft stroke on the muzzle before turning to Jon. She grinned from ear to ear. She could feel tears starting to build in her eyes. Heart pounding from exhilaration, she bounded into Jon's open arms and embraced him as though she'd never see him again.

"I've missed you," she said softly into his ear.

"Me too, little sister," Jon said, breaking apart just enough to muss up her hair. She missed that sorely. He brought the oilcloth bundle up before her. "Look what I've brought you."

Arya pulled out the grey leather scabbard from underneath the rags. "Needle," she said at once.

"Precisely," Jon's smile receded, his voice gone soft. He had to drop to one knee to meet her eye level. "You do remember."

Arya nodded, her fingers clenching tight around Needle's supple sheath.

"I decided to give this sooner to you, for your safety," his lips curled in a sly smile. "Still, you'd want to keep that hidden from Septa Mordane. Remember, this is no toy."

Arya chewed her lip. "I know. I've used it on some people."

Jon looked grim. "I'm sure you had to. I've done things I have regretted, and had to live with it."

 _I don't regret it,_ Arya thought, before her half-brother interrupted her musings.

He stood tall, and tugged gently at her small, child hands. "Come, Bran has asked everyone to gather."

"Bran?" Arya asked, confused. "Is he the lord now?"

"Believe me, he must be the only one who understands what's really going on, or so he gave me that impression. Come, it's important."

"But I want to see Father, and my Lady Mother, too," Arya protested.

"You will, in due time," Jon replied, smiling feebly. "I want to see him, too. But it has to wait. We have to do this before the King and his court arrives later today. We came to an agreement that this is a matter of life and death."

Arya paused a moment to think. "You said _everyone_ , but not Father."

Jon nodded. "Yes, but not father. I meant everyone who _remembers_."


End file.
